Letter From Vienna

ABSTRACT The EPF 35th Annual Conference will be held in Vienna in July 2022 after it was postponed in 2020 due to the pandemic. All the greater is the pleasure to welcome you to the EPF Congress with the theme of Ideals this summer. The Vienna Psychoanalytical Society (WPV, Wiener Psychoanalytische Vereinigung) and the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association (WAP, Wiener Arbeitskreis für Psychoanalyse) would like to extend a warm invitation and welcome to Vienna, the birthplace of Psychoanalysis.


Vienna Psychoanalytical
Society; Shadows of Heritage; development of new psychoanalytic currents alongside with Vienna's own tradition This summer the European Psychoanalytical Federation (EPF) is dealing with the topic of Ideals at its conference in Vienna. The topic of Realities, originally planned two years ago, was overtaken by another reality, the pandemic, and had to be carried out one year later in the form of a new reality, the virtual one. Meantime, we have been confronted with another new tragic reality, the terrible war in Ukraine. These developments threaten our social existence, endanger our need for security and freedom, and call into question our values of democracy and of peaceful co-existence acquired over decades. How can we address the issue of Ideals in the face of these unforeseen and dramatic realities in the present as well as in the past?
Today's analysis is characterised by such diversity that psychoanalysts are asking themselves more than ever about the legacy of Freud and his discoveriesthis concerns the influence of the past on the present from different perspectives: historical, cultural, individual. Do we have different Ideals to Freud? Does his shadow function as a helpful superego, or as a strict guard? Or is he just an unattainable and even intimidating Ideal? And what remains of his legacy, despite all the important further development of theoretical and clinical concepts of his heirs?
The members and candidates of our society are aware of the unique tradition of the Vienna school, as represented by Freud and his Vienna circle. We are aware of the lights and shadows of the history of our society regarding the responsibility in the struggle for preservation, further development, and search for innovation in the areas of analytical theory and clinical practice. Especially regarding the responsibility of the "Care and Promotion of the Psychoanalytic Science founded by Prof. Dr. Sigmund Freud in Vienna," as it says in the statutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society. Furthermore, the task of the Society is also defined in the statutes as being obliged "to maintain intellectual contact and scientific exchange of ideas with the International Psychoanalytic Association and the other (branch) societies" (Statutes of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society, founded 1908). -1938 -1998-2008 In 2008 the 21st EPF-Conference in Vienna dealt with the topic of Shadows of Heritage, where 100 years ago the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society was founded by Freud and the members of the so called "Mittwochgesellschaft."

1908
As we know, the first flourishing development came to a violent end in 1938. After the destruction of the Society, the persecution and dispersal of the Jewish psychoanalysts, only two members and some candidates were left in Vienna.
The history of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society (as well as of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association) is very precisely described in the Letter from Vienna 2020 by the two former presidents Christine Diercks and August Ruhs (2020).
We are very aware of the great losses, destruction, discontinuity and mourning in the history of our society. And yet, we are also proud of the immense work and optimistic spirit in which re-constructing and re-building took place over the periods of time on our way to our prosperous society. The survival of psychoanalysis in Vienna was possible with the support of a sufficient number of most competentlocal and internationalanalysts, but also with the engagement of a group of dedicated candidates of our society.
In the light of this heritage, we should be conscious of the meaning of its origins, at the same time as being aware that we are our own creators of our present and future. The reconstitution and new developments of our society, leading to its present state of vitality, has been a tremendous task and major challenge, bridging the discontinuity between the past and present and re-establishing the relationships with the international community at large.
In 1971, the 27th IPA-Congress in Vienna on The Psychoanalytical Concept of Aggression: Theoretical, Clinical and Applied Aspects marked a major milestone in restoring the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society to its international standing. It was of great importance for the Viennese analysts as Anna Freud returned to Vienna for the event for the first time after her flight and escape to London from the atrocities of the Nazi-regime.
At this first IPA-conference in Vienna since 1938, there began new exchanges and participations within the Psychoanalytic European Societies. For example, the Viennese president Wilhelm Solms, played an essential role in founding the EPF and the introduction of the Central European Congresses, which are still held biannual.
And yet, there also followed a period of controversies and conflicts within our society where a certain reserve existed in dealing with the changes in psychoanalytical theory, practice, and applications. There has been concerted effort to deal with scientific controversial discussions, as well as with the mourning and reflecting of Freud's legacy.
Maybe this culmination, particularly the Freud-Klein controversy in the dynamic of different groups, is of importance in all psychoanalytic societies, and may not be specific to the situation in Vienna. Nevertheless, the closeness to and identification with Freud is and was probably a special challenge in our society in order to preserve Freud's heritage, passing it on and keeping it alive, developing it further, questioning and endangering it. Consolidated and strengthened in our psychoanalytic identity, today we again seek with great pleasure the exchange about different psychoanalytic approaches and their clinical relevance.
In retrospect, the society's great achievement could be concluded with the impressions of an analyst on behalf of the occasion of the celebration of the ninetieth anniversary of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society in 1998: When I first returned to Vienna for the first time after the war, in 1953, and asked taxi chauffeurs to drive me to the Freud house, they had no idea to whom I was referring; at the time of the successful First International Psychoanalytic Congress in Vienna after the war, in 1971, everybody knew the house at Berggasse 19. The Vienna Psychoanalytical Society deserves to be congratulated for its achievements, for its success in facing up to the challenges involved in overcoming the discontinuities with the past, and to once again assume a leading function in the international psychoanalytic community (O. Kernberg; cit. in Bronner 2008).

Berggasse 19 -Salzgries 16
Turning to the present, the Sigmund Freud Museum now attracts visitors from all over the world. One of the recent exhibitions, "Organized Flight -Continuing Life in Exile. Viennese Psychoanalysis 1938 and After," was organized by the Viennese Group on History of Psychoanalysis from the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society (VPS) and the Vienna Psychoanalytical Association (VPA). Furthermore, in 2006 our society, in a productive cooperation with the association, have founded the Vienna Psychoanalytical Academy as a center for psychoanalysis and its applications in theory and practice. The Sigmund Freud Lectures held in the context of the Academy are of great interest to the public.
At Salzgries 16, which is the present home not only to our Society (VPS) but also to the Association (VPA) and the Academy, you can find a lively scientific institutional life in various clinical, training, research and administrative work areas. The original library of the Vienna Psychoanalytical Society in its uniqueness has been lost for more than 70 years, a considerable antiquarian book collection of classical psychoanalysis of more than 700 volumes is located at the Salzgries today. Meantime, the stock of the library has grown to more than 4.000 volumes and is used intensively by members and candidates as a reference library.
The archive, as part of our historical memory and heritage, with its lost treasures, is currently a research topic in our society in terms of re-systematisation. In any case, the stories of the archive are worth being reconstructed and retold.
Our society now includes 250 members and candidates, the training institute and the outpatient clinic. There is also an additional training in child-analysis.
The Society's psychoanalytical training follows the Eitingon model. Due to concerns about model regulations by the IPA, our society joined the European Visiting Programme (EVP) with the aim of exchange with European Societies reflecting the Eitingon model as the basis of psychoanalytic training standards.
The re-founding of the Society's outpatient clinic took place in 1999returning to how it was conducted until 1938and it had already been established in 1991 as a psychoanalytic counseling center. The aim of the Society's psychoanalysts working in the outpatient clinic is to apply psychoanalytic knowledge, experience and modern treatment techniques in a specific way, and to make them accessible to a larger group of patients, with particular attention to patients who are financially worse off.
Another continuously productive collaboration of our Society is with the Clinic for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy of the Medical University Vienna, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year. For example, the Anna Freud Lecture, which has been cohosted annually since 1982, goes back to the tradition set up by Anna Freud to advance the systematisation of psychoanalytic concepts and diagnostic perspectives, as established in the Hampstead Clinic.
It is true that we are still far from the vision described by Anna Freud in her paper, "The Ideal Psychoanalytic Institute -A Utopia" (1970): we know that not all of it can be realized, but in continued cooperation we may come closer to this ideal in the future.
After all, following years of preparatory work, a joint training program (Master Degree) of the Psychoanalytic Institutes and the Vienna Medical University has been established. In terms of Freud's joining of healing and research, this has led to a late reconciliation between academic teaching and psychoanalytic practice.
Returning to the initial question: How to approach the Ideal? This appears to be the permanent task of enabling containment and integration in times of crisis, and it is in tension with the idea of unattainable idealswhich are always confronted with unpredictability. Currently, a shattering war is taking place in the Ukraine. In the sense of a helpful social ideal, one could observe how quickly the European societies were willing to help and support their Ukrainian colleagues. Literally overnight, our Society has tried to help Ukrainian colleagues who fled to Vienna with their families, making sure that they could find a home as well as financial and emotional support. Furthermore, we also intend to support the Ukrainian Psychoanalytic Society (UPS) with a donation as a contribution to their extremely difficult situation. It will take time for the members and candidates of the UPS to cope with and recover from these extremely tragic incidents and shocking war-experiences.
Our Society has recently begun to reflect on these traumatic events that were unthinkable only a short time ago after decades of post-war peace in Europe. In this context, we invited an Ukrainian Training Analyst to talk and discuss with us the topic, "Why is this Reality so hard to believe? The Experience of Psychoanalytic Thinking in a Situation of Extreme Danger." This war also proves again the reality of unpredictability: we are obviously always threatened by certain occurrences such as pandemics or climate catastrophes. We should hope that the development of society at large will find its way back to peace and security in political and social terms, to which psychoanalysis can make its contribution. The ideal of psychoanalysis can probably help us to find a realistic and reachable ideal.
At the same time, we are aware that ideals only become non-destructive and divisive if they are made the subject of constant joint discussion and reflection. The Vienna Psychoanalytic Society is very much looking forward to sharing this with you at the 35th EPF Annual Conference on "Ideals." I We would like to end with Freud in Future of an Illusion: "The present must have become the past, if one is to gain evidence for the valuation of the future." (S. Freud, Die Zukunft einer Illusion, 1927, S. 326).
Welcome to Vienna!